October 29, 2006

Simply the Best: The Spectre #8

Really...could anyone back in 1969 resist the power of this cover and NOT buy the comic book?

Illustrated by another one of my favorite cover artists, Nick Cardy, The Spectre#8 remains one of the most powerful, arresting cover images in my collection.

It's a deceptively simple design. With the majority of the Spectre vaguely defined by the power burst lines, the contrasting solidity of his hand creates a neat little three dimensional effect. Paired with his snarling grimace, you can't shake the feeling that you yourself are at the business end of the Ghostly Guardian's terrible wrath.

Further amping up the power of the image is the very limited color palette of only a few blues and greens, used with great effect to emphasize the Spectre's wide-open eyes and gritted teeth. It was somewhat gutsy to use blue for the Spectre's face, since it was actually bone-white, but as I said, the splashes of white in his eyes, teeth and around his hand-blast are so effective, it was certainly a creative risk worth taking.

Hardly overwhelmed by the illustration, the black Spectre logo surrounded by a screaming yellow outline fairly blasts off the page, leaving no doubt who's jabbing a green finger in your face.

I think truly great artists have always tried to do their very best in whatever medium they toiled in, no matter how "low" the society at large considered it. At this point in the 60's, some truly great illustrators had found their way into comics (such as Neal Adams and Nick Cardy), along with the other craftsmen who had been cranking out comics for decades (such as Jack Kirby).

It seems guys like Adams, Cardy and DC art director Carmine Infantino had, by this time, brought a cinematic sensibility to comic book covers, infusing them with more raw emotion and sensational imagery. This was a departure from the more "just the facts, ma'am" covers that had defined much of DC's output during the 50's and early 60's.